Sentimentless
by Cenitopius
Summary: This is how it all began. This is how I changed, how my life changed, how one new friend moulded my soul, changing me forever. This is the story of my first love.
1. Signs of Life

_**The Sum of it All  
Chapter One: The First Meeting**_

_Inspired by the real events of __my blog post 'Here's My Story' on __ user/Cenitopius__. I recommend that you read the post before this, because that will give you a good idea of what's been going on, and from what perspective I'm writing this from. Those things have shaped my life and have made me truly happy, but this story is here to show some of the things that I feared happening. Each of my worries will be put in here and dumped on to one protagonist. The reasoning behind my choice of who that is goes as follows:  
The character I've chosen is an OC, and so doesn't have anything much for me to remember to imply. I've also made her a lot like me, except for the obvious difference that I am male, and I have a good perspective of how he feels._

_Many __thanks to __Lapison__, who __inspired me to write this story, and . He's a great writer, and someone you can rely on for an honest opinion, support, or even simply some kind words to cheer you up._

_And with that, I give you my story, as accurate as I could keep it whilst putting it through ponification:_

This is a story of love, of how we first met. If that's not what you're looking for, what you want, or what you're here for, if you don't want to hear this, then walk away now.

Do not start reading this, but never finish. Do not only read a bit, and decide that this is boring. If you know that you won't do these things, then you may read on, but if you read, and then leave the story unfinished, then that would be the biggest insult you could make.

That may seem silly, it may seem like I'm over-reacting, but that's what this story is written for, and devoted to. All those other stories that go unfinished. For that was my biggest fear during these events.

This is how we first met:  
~~~

The past few months had been a drag, but it was getting closer to the end of the school year. Something that I could rely on was my form group.

I've never felt unwelcome in there, and being where we go at the start of the day to prepare for all of the hustle and bustle that each day carries with it, I was happy in school.

I had friends that where in there, and no-one there disliked me more than the average bully, the common idiot who didn't like the colour of my mane, how pale I was, what I wore on non-uniform days, or just me in general. But again, those where the common people around the area; the inhabitants of Foalville where really just devils on a good day.

Before I go on, there are some things you should probably know about me.

Let's start in the deep end: I'm infamous. That's how I describe myself to anyone. To teachers, to school friends, to people I meet on holiday, to most everyone.

By infamous, I mean it on a classroom-scale. Most of the school knows about me, and most of the people that know about me hate me. I've never known why, but I've put it mostly down to them being jocks and me being a nerd. That said, I'm either much worse at a sport than them, or sometimes much better.

I have a red mane. That's also something that I put the hate down to. I could always dye it, but that'd be like putting up the white flag, saying 'Yeah, you're right, being ginger's really bad.' I'm not about to become normal. That'd be against my moral compass, because normal is what all these horrible people are, and I don't want to be like them.

Also, I see things from a long view. I'm normally the person that people come to for advice, or to talk about how upset they are. I help, and they go off happy. Some would feel abused by this, but I consider it my job, like volunteer work. If I'm able to do something for someone, then I should go ahead and do it, right? I'm not at a loss, anyway.

So that's me, in a nutshell. I'm the guy that sits there, making his own amusement, making everything a game, all until something serious comes up and he needs to help out.

Or rather, that _was_ me. I've changed, since then, but you'll find out how.

So it was a normal day, so far. I saw an old friend, who I wanted to ask a question. He had a friend - an ex-girlfriend, apparently - that was into most of the same things as me. Same music types and everything. So I asked him to introduce us to each other.

~~~  
We met a few days later, she was near him when I walked up to him, so he did as he said.

She had a blonde mane, and she was talking to her friend, another redhead - a twinge of pity hit me as I realised that she probably put up with abuse too.

And there she was. That's how we met - we were introduced. That was the start.

I showed her my pencil drawings, after a while of talking. That took some courage, as most people who saw them just laughed and turned me down, mocking me behind my back for the things that I liked. I often wanted to turn around and ask them straight up about it - 'Don't you have your childish sides? Don't you play with playing cards, or sit down for a board game? Don't you look up to someone, or wish someone knew you? Don't you wish, even for a minute, that your favourite comic characters, or something, would just show up and that? That your favourite television show was real?' - but I knew that they would just laugh, because the answer went against them either way. They'd pretend to find it funny, and they'd act like it was all a joke, like they could laugh it off and that'd be it.

Some people didn't like showing it off publicly, but I didn't care what they really thought.

She seemed to have an 'after effect' on me. I kept looking for her whenever I was near her usual spot, I followed her around when I found her, and struggled to leave when I thought I was becoming a pest.

Also, I was happier. Just a bit, but after that day, I couldn't stop smiling. I had been in a pretty depressive mood before, each day passing by me, more daunting and dreaded than the last, and coming up towards the final quarter of the year, I was already running out of steam. That made me depressed. No... stressed? Maybe.

In any case, whatever the horrible feeling was, it was slowly eroding to reveal a fresh layer of life - I didn't realise it at first, though.

And what was hidden in that slowly eroding layer would change my life, and the way I thought, forever.


	2. Interesting Developments

_**The Sum of it All  
Chapter Two: Interesting Developments  
**__After getting the lowest amounts of views on any of my stories (25 by the end of the first day, though no dislikes, and 2 likes), I figured that this needed continuing as soon as possible. _

_Also, Italics is my notes, only centred is my OC's notes._

_Here we go, then. Back to my story._

__If you're still reading this, then I'll say now that the distribution of this story means something huge to me. Your reading this alone makes me exited, and I thank you. This is my story, it's what happened to me, and it's something that will follow me forever, and has shaped and changed and moulded my life.

As the days turned into forgetful weeks, the side effects grew into full on personality quirks. I went from just being more happy to actually doing some of the things that I continuously pointed out to myself about her: The head tilt was the one that showed the most.

She actually tilted her head when she was thinking. I didn't remember seeing that since I was just a young foal that sat by a gate all day, watching groups of people argue about nonsensical things and friends play and fight and play-fight and just wishing, sometimes praying , that... well, that's another story. For another time. Or maybe it's this story, but not for this time.

In any case, some of the gestures that where iconic to her started rubbing off on me. I didn't get it at first. Why did I tilt my head when the French teacher asked me to say 'The apple is under the chair'? Why did I make hand gestures vertically, like a diagram, instead of horizontally, like an overhead view?

It seemed like I was just over thinking things again. People made remarks, but I didn't care. I never cared about that, not until it became physical. Even then, they could hit me as hard as they wanted, but every dodge or block - and I would only dodge or block, I hate to hit people out of things like anger - would be calculated in seconds, and I would think of things to say. They wouldn't need to be soothing ,but they just needed to be there, to show exactly how much effort I was putting into it.

After all, people had stopped doing things like that recently. I was either gaining respect for a cool head, or hopefully people where just leaving me alone for once.

In any case, I was still constantly on guard until I was with her. Even around my other friends, I had to watch for the joking insults so as I could... could what? I don't do much, really. But when I was with her, it was weight off of my shoulders. I could finally take of my armour of stone-heartedness, remove my helmet of cool-headedness, and open myself to be _me._

When had I last been me, in public? Near anyone? I've _dreamed_ of being me, but that's not public. I always have someone watching me when I'm in public, be it someone who means me harm, or someone who thinks more of me than I am, or just some one that's joined me and my friends that I don't trust.

But now I could just be me. I didn't need to hide anything, I didn't need to keep my face the same, be my boring bland self that I am for _so_ many reasons, because all those reasons are suddenly null. I don't need to protect myself, because there's no danger.

My mind used to be like Fort Knox: People would have to gain clearance to get closer to the centre, to get a ring further in, but now it's like all the gates are open, like I don't need all these silly walls and defences. I don't need to be on my permanent guard. I don't need to be fumbling around with how to do things, and I don't always need to be _doing_ something. I'm not under this constant need to be preoccupied, to be doing three or four things at once, _making_ myself busy.

A few months passed, and my feelings for her had begun to... develop. I didn't know what it was, I just knew that I was happy again, out of my silly, melancholic state, away from beating down on myself - I had this strange feeling in me, and it didn't go away, day in, day out. I felt reassured about everything I did, and I'd managed to avoid anything more than a snide remark from the pitiful, when it came down to bullies. I was improving, as was my life.

Amazingly, it came down to the last couple of weeks of the last term, and that was when I started trying to _really_ figure this thing out.

I'd been against young love since I was... how old? For years, anyway, but around that time, my view on the matter changed - it went from 'It just seems like more trouble than it's worth.' to 'It sounds like it makes people happy, so there's nothing wrong with it.' - and that was the first thing that really changed on how I was viewing things.

The last week had a trip for all the kids that weren't deemed bad by the school system - which I hated, it should be for those that were deemed exceedingly good, in my opinion - and as opposed to wanting to spend the whole day as a three with my two closest friends, I began to hope that I would run into her and her friends.

And so everything went as expected - the Monday of the last week of school, all those that where 'deemed worthy' where gathered in the hall, and we were given our instructions on how to contact an adult when this and that happened, and on what time to come back, etcetera, I noticed that we were split into year groups, and then into carriages for the journey there and back, leaving no chance of me being on the same coach as any of them.

Fortunately, me and the other two musketeers where placed together. I had one hell of a day ahead of me.


End file.
